Performing consanguinity: Lesbian family photography practices

Abstract

Drawing on interviews, autobiographies, and online ethnography, this paper explores the ways in which nonbiological lesbian parents and their family members use photographs to articulate their family relationships with their nonbiological children. Although a biogenetic link to children was perceived as unnecessary, even irrelevant, to their love for their children, nearly all the participants expressed exhilaration when the nonbiological offspring looked like or acted like the nonbiological parent. Many nonbiological parents composed and displayed photographs in ways to highlight similarity between themselves and their children. In this way, nonbiological parents “perform” consanguinity—a blood connection—for critical audiences, including themselves. Yet, the “display work” of queer family analyzed in this paper never fully masks their difference from the norm. The lesbian photography practices discussed in this paper suggest that while genetic thinking shapes family practices, they are also creating new meanings. Through photography practices, lesbian families demonstrate how doing queer kinship transforms heteronormative belonging.